With 63% of confirmed data breaches* involving weak, default or stolen passwords, identity has become the most consequential attack vector organisations are facing today. As organisations embrace cloud, mobile and web applications, the attack surface increases as does the probability that a single compromised identity can lead to a devastating loss for the organisation.

Identity assurance changes the security game. RSA balance the risk associated with each user’s actions with the assurance that they are, in fact, who they say they are.

Are you ready for take-off?

Organisations need to provide convenient yet secure access— connecting users with the information they need, whether on premises or in the cloud.

The result: Work gets done, users are happy—and you have the confidence that people are who they say they are.

Your approach to identity assurance should be the runway that sets your business—and your users—soaring.

Making the Move from Identity Management to Identity Assurance

If you can be assured that people are who they claim to be when they seek access, you can free them to do more with fewer restraints on them.

The challenge is to get that assurance without placing undue demands on users to provide it.

To that end, we’re focusing our efforts on approaches to authentication that reduce the onus on the user without compromising security.

For example, if you detect a user connecting to the network on the same approved device in the same manner they use every day, or signing into applications they rely on all the time, then that presents relatively little authentication risk. But what if there’s something different this time? Perhaps they’re trying to sign into an application for the first time, or they’re using a different device from a different location. How do you contain the potential risk without burdening the user?

We have a few thoughts on that:

You can get identity assurance with contextual clues and anomaly detection, as in the example above; by using machine learning to help recognise behaviours that will provide assurance

Have a rich ecosystem of data sources to provide as much information as possible to learn from.

If you do have to require step-up authentication in real time, having a broad range of flexible multi-factor authentication choices (e.g., mobile push notification, fingerprint scanner and eyeprint reader) will give the user freedom to choose the most convenient path.

Convenient, Secure Access Is the Whole Point of RSA SecurID® Access

We’ve seen some new two-factor authentication solutions that respond to the need for more convenient access by providing it at the expense of security. And we’ve seen others do just the opposite, attempting to manage risk by weighing down users with cumbersome requirements.

Neither approach, frankly, recognises the possibility—really, the necessity—of reconciling those two approaches.

Ultimately, you must balance the two, which is the whole point of identity assurance.

That brings us to RSA SecurID® Access, the solution that achieves the elusive balance between convenience and security through identity assurance. RSA SecurID Access provides a range of authentication options to keep users happy and keep the business secure.

This solution gives your users the ability to innovate, accelerate and collaborate. And it gives you the security and control to prevent identity risks from becoming a drag on your business.

It allows for access policies that gauge risk from contextual clues and enable risk-based authentication decisions. With it, the security team has the control over access that’s needed to keep the organisation safe, and business users have the freedom and flexibility to keep moving forward.

About Blue Cube

The Blue Cube ethos is to offer fully independent and accurate advice providing the expertise, technology and management skills to help identify where to protect, what to protect and how to protect corporate IT resources and enable secure access for authorised users.